Economics of Management Zone Delineation in Cotton Precision Agriculture

Margarita Velandia, Roderick M. Rejesus, Eduardo Segarra and Kevin Bronson

No 35387, 2006 Annual Meeting, February 5-8, 2006, Orlando, Florida from Southern Agricultural Economics Association

Abstract: This paper develops a management zone delineation procedure based on a spatial statistics approach and evaluates its economic impact for the case of Texas cotton production. With the use of an optimization model that utilizes a yield response function estimated through spatial econometric methods, we found that applying variable N rates based on the management zones delineated would result in higher cotton yields and higher net returns, above Nitrogen cost, relative to uniformly applying a single N rate for the whole field. In addition, a variable rate N application using the delineated management zones produced higher net returns, above Nitrogen cost, relative to a variable N rate system where the zones are based solely on landscape position. This is indicative of the potential economic value of using a spatial statistics approach to management zone delineation.

Keywords: Management Zones; Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis; Site-Specific Nitrogen Management; Cotton Precision Agriculture.; Crop Production/Industries; Q1; Q16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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